


Voices

by HarmoniaChimera



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, X-Men: Days of Future Past References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 18:40:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarmoniaChimera/pseuds/HarmoniaChimera
Summary: What happened at the hotel stays at the hotel.





	Voices

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn’t help myself…  
> This story is sponsored by many hours spent watching The Days of Future Past (and I mean many more than the movie actually lasts (ahem; I just love X-Men, okay??))—plus the awesome magical scene where Charles and Erik play chess and talk to each other just like befoooreee (I’m not crying, there’s a branch in my eye), AND my ridiculous standards regarding fanfiction of the ‘if you don’t like how they do it, do it yourself’ variety.
> 
> **Disclaimer:** This is translated from Polish, so expect weird use of phrasing, prepositions, articles, and words in general. If it bothers you, please point it out and I’ll fix!

Erik hadn’t been lying. Charles really was the last person he had expected to see, but not the last he  _wanted_  to see. His jaw still hurt, but he couldn’t complain about that, either. He deserved it. He’d be more than happy to be smacked about some more for what he had done to Charles. He took a sip of his Scotch. He deserved it.

On the other hand, though, seeing Charles walk—it was surreal. He had never actually seen him in the wheelchair, but even back then, on the beach, it was clear… After all, she had said that… Erik put the glass aside and leant over in his chair as if broken in half. A hollow moan escaped his lips. It was only an accident, only an accident… So why did he feel so damn devastated?

He took a deep breath and sat back up. He sighed again, just for good measure, and reached for his glass again, but then he just stared at it, fighting himself. He shouldn’t be drinking so much. They have a lot to do tomorrow. He should just go to sleep and rest.

But he still couldn’t stop thinking about that talk they’d had, about Charles’s face when he was saying… Even thinking about it pained Erik somewhere deep within his chest.

_“How did you lose them?” Erik asked calmly, curious. Charles gave him an uncertain look before he answered:_

_“The treatment for my spine fixed my DNA.” His voice was empty. Erik looked at him in disbelief._

_“You sacrificed your powers so you could walk?”_

_“I sacrificed my powers so that I could sle—“ Charles choked, as if his throat tightened unexpectedly, and looked out the window. “What do you know about it?”_

And just like that, Erik was sitting in an armchair in a Paris hotel with a glass of Scotch, finding it impossible to fall asleep himself. He was thinking about what he lost, about Mystique and about his brothers and sisters who had died because of human greed and fear. But above all, he was thinking about Charles and the Cuban beach and how he had fucked everything up with his  _own_  greed and fear. And he was so sure, so sure…

He heard it suddenly. It wasn’t exactly a scream, but rather something like… like a harbinger of it. Actually, Erik had no idea what it was. The only thing he was really sure of was that it was nothing good and that it came from Charles’s room.

He jumped to his feet a bit too eagerly and wondered at his own enthusiasm. And then he got a little dizzy; his gaze happened across the glass of Scotch and a lot of things started to make sense. With it still in his hand, he left the room. The whole floor was silent; it was beginning to feel like he had only imagined hearing it, but something strange seep in his mind assured him it wasn’t just a hallucination. So he knocked gently at the neighbouring door.

“Charles?” he called into the darkness as he opened it slowly. “Is everything all right?”

And then he saw him. Charles was curled up on the bed, his breathing heavy; his bare chest was covered in sweat, his head hung between his arms. The scene unravelled before Erik slowly as his eyes adjusted to the dark. At the sound of the door closing, Charles finally raised his head and looked straight at him.

“Erik…?” escaped his lips, as if he was making sure. “No, no, go away. Get out. I don’t need your pity.”

Erik really wanted to obey, but somehow… he couldn’t. He had never before seen Charles so vulnerable, so… unguarded. Even back then, when he lay in the sand, he hadn’t allowed himself even a moment of weakness. And now he looked like he was barely holding back tears, and the shaking of his hands could be seen even despite the unbroken darkness.

Charles stared at him for another second. “But I could use your Scotch,” he said finally, quietly, and Erik almost automatically came closer to hand him the glass. His steps sounded awfully loud in the nearly empty room. Charles seemed to have gotten rid of all the furniture except for the bed and a small table, and it uncomfortably reminded Erik of his cell in the Pentagon.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Erik asked as Charles chugged down the rest of the liquor, and then grimaced as it burnt his throat, and only then he answered with a nod. “But your powers—“

“This wasn’t my powers’ fault.” His gaze flicked to Erik’s face for a split second and it burnt hot. It was  _his_  fault. They had to meet again, they had to work together again, and… God, how could he think Charles wouldn’t be affected?

_You abandoned me!_

Charles’s voice and all the pain within it sounded in Erik’s head so loud and clear like it had been there since forever. But he knew it was impossible. His memories, with the help of alcohol and his friend’s face which he now looked at in disbelief, were mixing with reality. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. He didn’t want Charles to know how much his suffering moved him. But actually—why?

He gave in to himself and sat on the edge of the bed. Charles handed him the empty glass, but Erik, having no idea what to do with it, awkwardly put it on the floor. After a long while of silence, which they both spent staring at some strangely fascinating points between their respective knees, Charles finally looked him in the face. Although it seemed like he had to force himself to.

“Why did you come?” he asked.

“I heard… something, and it sounded like you wanted to scream but couldn’t get your voice out,” Erik explained, barely finding the words. Charles waved his hand impatiently.

“No, why did you  _come_?”

Erik didn’t answer straight away. “I couldn’t help myself,” he said finally. “I didn’t want… You’re my friend, Charles. You always will be. I couldn’t leave you alone like this.”

_You abandoned me!_

Erik’s gaze fell to his fiddling fingers, to his restless hands, and then his head also dropped. Charles didn’t miss one detail, but he remained silent. It was obvious neither Erik’s feelings nor his were really caused by their meeting today, or at least not exclusively. He knew where they came from. But he tried his best, for a while now, not to think about that day. Too afraid that if he let it get to him, he’d crumble into a heap like a sand castle. Like back then.

“I’m sorry,” Erik whispered at last, his voice shaking dangerously. “You don’t even know how much I regret what I did to you.”

“Indeed, I don’t,” Charles said dryly. “You never gave me a chance to find out. Left me guessing.”

“I’m giving you a chance now, if you’re only willing to listen.”

Charles wasn’t entirely certain if he  _was_  willing to listen, and it must’ve shown on his face because Erik let out a pained groan and his gaze dropped to his lap again. Still, Charles felt he needed that conversation—he needed to make sure Erik understood.

“There were times I wanted to take my own life,” he said finally, “because I couldn’t make sense of it. I lost so much, all at once, that…” He fell silent, looking for a way to not sound too accusatory, but he could see Erik was already full of guilt. “I don’t want to blame you, Erik. Give me a reason not to blame you.”

Erik didn’t say anything. There was nothing he could say to convince Charles that he wouldn’t have already known. He looked up at him now, expecting anger, or at least mistrust, but there was only a silent plea in Charles’s eyes—for an explanation, or help, maybe?

“I believed it for the best,” Erik said at last. “I wanted to run from what I did to you. I really thought it would help you, too.”

“It was an accident, Erik. I couldn’t blame you for an accident. Only for leaving us there without any way to get back home. And for what you did to Raven.”

Charles’s voice was tired and dry, but Erik didn’t notice that. They may never find a common ground when it came to human-mutant relations, but if he could heal even just a tiny bit of the pain he had caused Charles, he was going to.

And when Charles raised his gaze to him again—as if expecting an answer that was never going to come—Erik remembered that day when he had felt him in his mind for the first time. He remembered his own emotions and Charles’s as well, intermingling, and that realization that their lifelong friendship had just begun budding between them; and he couldn’t keep himself away.

Charles—surprisingly—didn’t push him away, not even when Erik’s tongue slipped in between his lips. He put one hand on his chest—and Erik’s heart jumped toward it—only to then move it up and clench it on his neck. His other hand Erik grabbed himself, interlacing their fingers together.

They kissed like they had been waiting for this moment for years. Charles’s bare chest was heaving in quick, impatient breaths, his hands shaking; Erik slipped his lips down to Charles’s throat, gently pushing him back until they hit the pillows. With his free hand, he found a nipple and Charles arched his back in response, and then even more when Erik took it in his mouth. If Charles’s fingernails were any longer, he’d be leaving red marks on Erik’s back just about now. Erik smirked at the very thought of what was going to happen when he finally reached lower.

And then he suddenly realised they may not have as much time as they would maybe like—and immediately pushed that thought aside. It wasn’t important. Even if the hotel was about to fall on their heads, Erik had no intention of tearing himself away from his friend. Charles didn’t resist him, quite the opposite—when Erik took off his boxers and wrapped his lips around his manhood, he jerked his hips, pushing into Erik’s mouth so deep his throat ached.

“No, Erik…” Charles moaned even though his fingers were thoroughly intertwined in Erik’s hair and he looked like he barely kept himself from pulling him closer. “Ah… Stop… Erik…”

Erik didn’t stop. He tightened his grasp on Charles’s hips, pushing him into his own mouth over and over, until he filled it and overfilled it; he swallowed him, massaged him with his tongue, sucked on him, making Charles feel so good that when it got too much to take, he tore Erik off of himself, even though his face betrayed how much he wanted to fuck his throat. Erik fell onto the bed, panting; raising to his elbow, he let the other hand fall to his trousers, his eyes never leaving Charles’s body. For a moment, there was a sort of a heavy silence hanging in the air, like too much has been left unsaid… but there was no time. They couldn’t wait anymore. Not after all those years.

Charles still hesitated, though; his gaze constantly changing from lust to shame to some remnants of anger which he hadn’t gotten and was never going to get used to. His erect manhood was still glistening in what little light seeped through from the hallway, and when Erik reached over to make absolutely sure they were indeed reflecting each other… They were.

Charles’s hand tightening on his dick, so strange to the touch, yet so wonderfully familiar; his blue eyes tracing every inch and every line of Erik’s face when he was giving back what he had received; and those red lips, parting involuntarily as the faintest promise of a kiss. After that, Erik didn’t remember much— the Scotch mixing in his head with the raging emotions and the dizzying sensation of Charles’s warm skin under his hands, chest, thighs… The images of their caresses and kisses tangled with the pain of Charles’s fingers digging into his arms and his exhausted moans, and that overwhelming pressure, and the heat, and the fullness of their joining, which was for them both, together and apart, incomparably more satisfying than anything else they could ever do.

_There will be no going back._

He felt Charles in his head suddenly, just like many years ago, and even though he knew it was just an illusion, and even though the memory wasn’t even one of the good ones, he still  _felt him_ , in so many ways at once it took his breath away; it took the highest effort to breathe in the hot, lust-filled air—but even to that they gave in together. Charles was biting down on his own hand, trying to stop the screams which still leaked, despite his best efforts, through the cracks, until Erik kissed him, deeply and hungrily, and their ragged breaths rattled between their lips. Everything in his world was Charles.  _Charles’s_  leftover tears of pain smeared damply across Erik’s cheek when he reached to  _Charles’s_  neck with his lips, when he grabbed the back of  _Charles’s_  head, when he started, so pressed against  _Charles’s_  cool skin stretched across the hot insides… started looking for their joint rhythm deeper and deeper, faster and faster, more and more desperately. But only when Charles, whimpering and moaning quietly like someone took away his voice, began to throw up his hips to meet him, only then Erik allowed himself to get lost in him. He let go of the edge and fell into the abyss, sunk into the raging waves beating the shore with the deafening roar, and despite the pain, despite the reality violently breaking into his Charles-filled thoughts, the freedom of the fall filled him with euphoria incomparable with anything or anyone else in his life.

That night Charles did not hear the echoes of the nightmarish voices.


End file.
